75. I was one of the people who was OK with it for the unemployment extension.

And I have since admitted it was a shitty deal. Would I still have supported it? Yeah, probably, no doubt. Unemployment benefits were necessary at that time. The SNAP build out was highly important, still needed to this day.

However, the economy is not in the state that it was back then, so as a "halfway measure" it simply isn't necessary, it would be an epic fail. One reason I voted for Obama was he assured us he would let the Bush tax cuts expire. It is the most important reason, for me, really.

If he fucks this up I will be really pissed.

Anyway, to answer your question, I do think that there are legitimate reasons to do the compromise and the halfway measures. I don't think that such reasons exist now, and I can't be sure how to convince people of this, except by pointing out the facts (such as the CBO report, etc). The Republicans do not want it reported that the Bush tax cuts do not grow the economy at all and that letting them expire has little effect on the future growth of the economy (and furthermore that we pay billions in interest alone).